British Gas Boiler Installation - Complaint

Plasticman

A word of warning first - this post is a bit long because the first part is a bit of a vent! If you're in a hurry and just want to get to the point then feel free to jump to the last paragraph!

Our elderly neighbour had her boiler replaced by British Gas last week. When I dropped in to visit her today, there was a strong smell of gas from the cupboard under the stairs. I turned off the gas and called the emergency gas callout number.

When I looked in the cupboard, it looked to me (admittedly no expert!) like a complete bodge. The pipe from the meter heading upstairs was at an angle so that it was not square in the compression joint. The pipe wasn’t properly fixed to the wall so it was waving around and the bracket for the meter had been removed (presumably to get the pipes to fit) and the meter was basically left floating in air held up by one pipe which had a joint in it.

The gas man turned up and confirmed that gas was “p*ssing out” from the poorly fitted compression joint. He said that the installation was unsafe and that he should really disconnect it, but that we would carry out a temporary repair rather than leave an OAP without and heating or hot water.

I told my neighbour that I would contact British Gas for her tomorrow and get them back to correct their shoddy work. I would have contacted them tonight but I was really wound up that they could leave such a dangerous installation – I didn’t want to end up losing my rag on the phone. I have calmed down slightly now and just feel grateful that she hasn’t blown herself up!

So – the point of my post (other than needing to vent) is to ask whether anybody knows which number I should be contacting British Gas on to complain and get them back to sort out the mess. I’ve looked on their website and British Gas seem to be nearly as many phone numbers as they have customers……………..

Sooler

Submit a complaint to Gas Safe http://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/help/make_a_complaint.aspx

Gerrard_8_lfc

Area Service Centre - 0800 2948 650

That is shocking if they have done that an OAP.

These guys will be able to send a complaint to a higher authority for it to be investigated (A senior engineer will inspect the work.)

Its really sad the the old woman trusted the "gas board" to do the work and it has ended up like this.

please update on results

Plasticman

Thanks for that. I will give it a try and see where what happens.

Cardew

British Gas sub-contract some of their work to 'trusted' contractors.

You really want to make a huge fuss about this!

How about contacting Watchdog or a newspaper?

Mynewt

Sadly this will just one cas eof many the press and watchdog will likely have heard about, but by all means speak with them to add further weight to their research.

While BGAS control the majority of the Central Heating Maintenance market, they are not the only company involved. As soon as the repair has been compelted get away from them, do a little research and find a company with a high first time fix rate, whose complaints are at a low level and whose repair time is also low.

(I can't remember the excact figures but i beleive BGAS's complaints are at a level of 26 per 1000, first time fix rate is 81% and time to repair is at 5 days. I was given these during a briefing on my own company's mainteance contract earlier in the year so things may have changed somewhat - i just hope its for the better).